200 THE ANTARCTIC. 



Cape Cotter exhibits the same characteristics as the 

 north coast, only here the mountain summits seem to 

 rise still higher, 11,800 to 13,800 feet; the highest and 

 most prominent height of this range is Mount Herschell 

 Here too every coast indentation is completely filled up 

 by vast glaciers again resting on the sea bottom and 

 unable to break away and float. At a distance of two 

 to three miles from the coast Ross sounded depths of only 

 350 to 550 feet, an insufficient depth for floating Antarctic 

 icebergs of ordinary size. The chain of low islets lying 

 at a short distance from the coast consists entirely of 

 volcanic rocks if an inference may be drawn from one of 

 them, Possession Island, latitude 71 56' S., longitude 

 1 7 1 ° j' E., visited both by Ross and the crew of the 

 Antarctic. The rocks were partly porous hornblende 

 basalt free from olivin which here and there showed 

 columnar detachment. On the south-west Possession 

 Island bears two pointed heights of 300 feet each, and 

 was pretty nearly free from snow on the occasion of both 

 landings ; it had, however, a thick covering of guano 

 deposited by the innumerable penguins that inhabit the 

 island. On a rock at about twenty-eight feet above sea- 

 level Borchgrevingk found the same lichen that appears 

 on Cape Adare. 



Cape Wheatstone, the boundary of Tucker Bay on 

 the north, is completely covered with ice at the top, 

 while the steep descent is free from snow ; and farther 

 south a cape with two heights, perhaps Cape Jones, is 

 equally steep and free from snow. For the rest this 

 section of the coast is evidently entirely covered with 

 ice, and the same is in the main true of Coulman Island 

 the centre of which lies about latitude J 3 36' S., longi- 

 tude 1 70° 2' E. According to the chart drawn by Ross it 

 must be of tolerable extent, with a length of at least 

 eighteen miles ; with perhaps the exception of Cape 

 Anne, the height of the island appears inconsiderable, 



